


Meat

by superstringtheory



Series: Thawing [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Cannibalism, Dissociation, Food Poisoning, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control, Mindfuck, Protective Steve Rogers, Sick Bucky Barnes, Sick Character, Sickfic, Vomiting, being forced to eat non-food items
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 06:34:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7349503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstringtheory/pseuds/superstringtheory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are setbacks in every recovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meat

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at superstringtheory.tumblr.com.

“You’ve been quiet tonight. Something on your mind?” 

“Don’t feel good,” Bucky whispers, tucked under Steve’s chin in bed. 

“You didn’t eat much at dinner,” Steve says, looking concerned. He smooths Bucky’s hair back from his forehead. “You don’t feel warm. What doesn’t feel good?” 

Bucky has difficulty, sometimes, describing how this-- _ his _ \-- body feels. He shrugs. “Just a little off.” 

Steve fits Bucky back under his chin, rubs small circles into his shoulder. “Then go to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll be right here.”

 

*

 

The problem, really, all boils down to meat (not necessarily boiled, but it could be). That burger he ate for lunch; the muscles entwined with metal in his shoulder. Sinew and gristle, undercooked and about 70 years past the date of expiration.

 

*

 

Bucky wakes up shivering despite Steve’s warm arm flung over his chest, and the covers tangled around their legs. He shifts uncomfortably, stomach giving a sickly gurgle. 

Steve wakes when Bucky’s retching for the third time, tasting bile. He stands in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, considering the miserable tableau. 

“You sick, Buck?” 

Bucky spits into the toilet, fumbles to flush, hand ghosting along like he’s not sure where he is. Steve steps in and does it for him, then fills the bathroom cup with water and kneels down next to him. He makes Bucky sip slowly and swish, and supports him to spit into the sink before they both sit on the bathroom floor again, Bucky propped up against the wall. Bucky’s eyes slide closed as his stomach lurches again and Steve’s big knuckles press against the side of his face and neck. He twitches, and everything goes  _ Sopranos _ -finale dark.

 

*

 

_ “Hungry, Soldier?” When he was weak from hunger and almost too dizzy to aim straight. “You have provisions right there.” The handler spoke mildly, but almost as if he couldn’t believe what a stupid Soldier this was. The handler inclined his head at the flesh arm, and a small spark lit the Soldier’s dull eyes.  _

_ They had to put him back in the chair and wipe him mid-mission that time, and the handler was publicly chastised but privately lauded; how clever to make the Soldier degrade himself in this way. The Soldier waking again from frozen sleep with his own blood still staining his teeth: how very very clever indeed. The stale taste of blood the only reminder that something had happened, but since his arm would be all healed up (and he wouldn’t remember it anyway), not knowing what it had been. _

 

*

 

“Buck?” The Target’s there, leaning over him like he’s going to strangle him. The Soldier recoils, and the Target places strong hands on the Soldier’s shoulders, but he’s not holding down for the kill, he’s murmuring, gently-- 

“Bucky, it’s me. It’s Steve. C’mon, it’s okay. I can do this all day. C’mon, Buck. You’re okay, you’re okay.” 

Bucky comes back to himself in a haze, and feels the urge to vomit again, not just from whatever bad thing he’d eaten but from the low grade buzzing in his ears, a tangle of Russian syllables and snow-like static. He shakes his head once, twice. Blinks. 

“Steve.” It’s more of an exhalation than a word. 

“Yeah, buddy. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Bucky clutches Steve to him, pants into Steve’s neck, hot forehead burning against Steve’s skin. 

“Do you know where you are, Bucky?” Steve holds him tightly, like flesh embraces can really assist with synaptic failures and twitchings, rotten meat held inside by skin too stubborn to split. 

Bucky huffs, leaves wet spots on Steve’s t-shirt. “Wakanda,” he mutters. “Africa. Bathroom floor.” 

Steve skims his thumb over the back of Bucky’s neck, strokes his sweaty hair. “Good, that’s good. Do you wanna talk about it at all, or do you just want to go back to sleep?” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything, just shoves himself further into Steve’s armpit like an extra appendage until Steve picks him up like he weighs nothing and cradles him to his chest (and that’s plus one for supersoldier boyfriends if nothing else). Steve walks over to the bed and carefully sets Bucky down and then climbs up after him. 

Bucky is warm and listless, and Steve offers Tylenol and tepid water but Bucky blanches at them and Steve doesn’t force the issue. 

In fact, Steve thinks that Bucky’s fallen asleep when his ears barely catch another exhaled word: “Arm.” 

“Your arm hurts? Is it your shoulder?” Steve’s rubbing gently at where Russian metal is still fused to American brawn (or what’s left of it, anyway). 

Bucky’s eyes flutter open, his mouth twisting in a kind of rictus. “Not that arm.” 

Steve’s hand stops moving, but he doesn’t push Bucky for more information. 

Bucky licks his lips, and his voice cracks. “They made me eat it.” 

There’s silence, for a beat, then longer. Bucky’s exhale is noisy. “It healed. Can’t tell.” His hand unconsciously makes a fist, but Steve’s the one ready to punch something. 

Bucky falls asleep then, and Steve holds him-- overly warm, mostly present (speaking both physically and mentally), shivering. Steve holds him, and it’s harder even than pulling a helicopter back to earth, than swimming with dead weight on your shoulder.

 

*

 

After extricating himself from the covers and Bucky’s dry heat, Steve tells Nat what happened in what’s supposed to be a furious whisper in the hallway outside of Bucky’s room. The cat has been shut in Natasha’s room for safekeeping and because she wouldn’t stop poking at Bucky when he was sleeping and making a high keening noise. 

Nat’s never been one for a lot of emotion, but her mouth gets smaller and tighter the more Steve tells her and she has to clear her throat, something Steve’s never heard before. 

“It’s not typically possible for that to happen,” she says, meeting Steve’s eyes levelly. “The body has overrides for injuries like that, the jaws won’t normally close with enough pressure on your own skin.” 

Steve runs his hand through his hair. “Yeah.” Tries not to think about how she says  _ the _ jaws, using impersonal preposition like they both haven’t been picturing it. 

“It’s why you can bite someone else’s finger off in the middle of an attack but aren’t worried about accidentally doing that to yourself.” 

When Steve punches the wall, Natasha doesn’t chastise or congratulate him. She doesn’t say ( _ sure you want to punch your way out of this one _ ) anything, just shrugs out of her jacket and gives it to Steve to wrap around his bleeding knuckles. 

“Anything broken?” she asks, and Steve swipes his good hand over his eyes and huffs what could be a laugh. 

“Nothing permanent.” 

And it’s a relief, in a way, isn’t it, to watch Bucky sleeping and to feel metatarsals crochet themselves back in alignment. To have the ability to stroke the smooth skin of Bucky’s flesh arm and be glad at the very least that he doesn’t have scars to remind him-- the absent shadow on the left side of his body is memory jerk enough, synaptic shock enough. 

Bucky moans in his sleep. Nat’s bending over him with one of those ear thermometers. 

“Temp’s up,” she says flatly. “Do you want to go get Sam, or should I?” 

Steve wraps Nat’s now-bloody jacket tighter around his hand. “I’ll go.” 

Her fingers tug through Bucky’s hair. 

“Godspeed,” she says wryly, and Steve goes.

 

*

 

_ “Get the rabbit, Soldier.”  _

_ The Soldier got the rabbit. Up close, it wasn’t moving after all, but cold and stiff. The handler seemed to enjoy watching this spectacle, the Soldier desperately masticating frozen meat, and he laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed.  _

_ Later, the Soldier ate dirt, chipped a tooth on a rock. Vomited bloody mud. The mission was over, he was supposed to go back now, he’d been good, so good, and he was so hungry. The handler let him go on with dirt under his fingernails and watched with interest when, in the transport back to the base, the Soldier writhed with cramps as the body rejected the blood. Too bad that Jesus dude wasn’t around to change some dirt into bread or something.  _

_ “Don’t freeze him yet,” the handler said when they got back. “Hose him off, he’s filthy. And then hang an extra bag of saline, he’s dehydrated.” _

 

*

 

“Hey there, Bucky, we’re going to put an I.V. in, okay? You’re all dehydrated, bud.” Sam’s voice, soft, dealing-with-P.T.S.D.-survivors tone. “Steve’ll be right here, so I just need you to stay still, okay? Okay.” 

Nat and T’Challa are murmuring quietly but urgently by the doorway. Bucky can’t quite catch it all, but it sounds like T’Challa wants to wake the doctor, and Nat thinks they should keep this amongst themselves for now. This is a team effort, dammit, and Bucky is one of the team now. Nat’s hands fly around like marionette dolls in the dark until her voice raises along with T’Challa’s and then they both fall silent. 

Sam continues his slow, steady narration, and Bucky doesn’t flinch at the pinch of the I.V. needle. 

He sleeps like the dead-- but reanimated, twitching every so often, blank eyes opening to regurgitate sour meat. Steve holds a kidney-shaped basin for him, and Nat takes the hair tie out of her own hair to pull his hair back for him.

 

*

 

_ Starving hunting dogs gulping cheap dog food, snapping at each other’s jaws. The Soldier watched them carefully, as if afraid to show too much interest. Pungent smell of meat, the Soldier salivating, Pavlovian. The handler allowed him to lick the remnants from the trough, then laughed at him, at how desperate they could make him.  _

_ Back at the base, the handler let the Soldier wait in the chair with the stomach tube inserted but not yet filling. Made him wait, made him beg for it, then kept going past the usual amount, until the Soldier’s expression of relief, of almost-pleasure turned to pain. _

 

*

 

Bucky wakes, pale and nauseated but cognizant. Steve’s curled against him in bed, fully clothed, combat boots unlaced but still on his feet. Sam’s sitting sideways on the couch, reading something on an iPad. 

Bucky shifts carefully, feels the tug of the IV line in the crook of his arm. Sam looks up and sees that he’s awake, then jumps up in sock feet and comes over to the bed, Steve stirring but not waking, just burrowing deeper into Bucky’s side. 

“Hey.” Bucky’s throat is dry, and Sam pours him a glass of water from the pitcher on the night table. 

“Hey yourself, big guy. Looks like you got yourself some food poisoning, bro.” Sam takes the glass back when Bucky has finished sipping, holds it for a moment, then says, “Drink a little more for me, huh? Fever’s down but you’re still dehydrated. Steve’ll be happy to hear that you’re getting some fluids in you when he wakes up.” 

Sam Wilson is a rat bastard who knows the magic words. It takes a few minutes, but Bucky drains the glass of water, then pushes it back at Sam. His stomach feels weird, hollow, but he’s not hungry. 

“How are you feeling, really?” Sam sets the glass back on the table. “No lying, I can tell.” 

Bucky considers, huffs out an amused sound. “Like hell. But… present.” 

“That’s good, man. That’s good.” Sam pats Bucky on the shoulder as Steve blinks awake and sits up. 

“Hey, Sam.” Steve rubs his hand over his face, his hair and clothing sleep-rumpled. “Hey, Buck.” He palms Bucky’s face and neck. “You feel a lot cooler.” 

“Yeah, temp’s almost back to normal. And he drank some water, so don’t worry, Nurse Rogers. He’ll be okay.” Sam winks conspiratorially at Bucky, and Steve rolls his eyes as he swings his long legs out of bed. 

They spend the day lounging around the room, Steve literally hand feeding Bucky crackers and sips of ginger ale, the cat curled between them on the couch as they watch House Hunters. Steve is terrible at guessing which house the people on the show will choose, but Bucky likes listening to the reasoning and Steve’s groans of disbelief when the obnoxious couple goes for House 1 instead of House 3 (the obvious choice!). 

“They always pick the one with the pool,” Bucky tells Steve, accepting another cracker. “You should know that by now.” 

“But the house was literally ON THE BEACH,” Steve exclaims. “Who needs a pool if you’re on the beach?!” 

“House Hunters rule,” Bucky says. “The one with the pool always wins.” 

“Ugh,” Steve says. “You wouldn’t leave me for a house with a pool, would you?” 

Bucky snorts. “Not a chance. Next episode?” 

Steve looks at him fondly, thinks about how far they’ve come, both of them-- from blank-eyed soldier icepops to thawed mercenaries of war to guys who cuddle on the couch and watch too much television. “Yeah,” he says. “Next episode.”

 


End file.
